House Committee on the Judiciary, “The State of Intellectual Freedom in America.” September 27, 2018. Unclassified.

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by  2018-09-27

THE STATE OF INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM IN
AMERICA
HEARING
BEFORETHE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION
AND CIVIL JUSTICE
OFTHE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
Serial No. 115–68
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
(
Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
33–122 WASHINGTON : 2018
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., JERROLD NADLER, New York
Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
LAMAR SMITH, Texas SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
DARRELL E. ISSA, California HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia
STEVE KING, Iowa THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas LUIS V. GUTIE´RREZ, Illinois
JIM JORDAN, Ohio KAREN BASS, California
TED POE, Texas CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
RAU´L LABRADOR, Idaho ERIC SWALWELL, California
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas TED LIEU, California
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland
KEN BUCK, Colorado PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama VALDEZ VENITA ‘‘VAL’’ DEMINGS, Florida
MATT GAETZ, Florida
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
JOHN RUTHERFORD, Florida
KAREN HANDEL, Georgia
KEITH ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania
SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff and General Counsel
PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND CIVIL JUSTICE
STEVE KING, Iowa, Chairman
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
KAREN HANDEL, Georgia JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
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C O N T E N T S
SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Steve King, Iowa, Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitu-
tion and Civil Justice ........................................................................................... 00
The Honorable Steve Cohen, Tennessee, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on
the Constitution and Civil ................................................................................... 00
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman, Committee on the Judici-
ary ......................................................................................................................... 00
The Honorable Jerry Nadlar, New York, Ranking Member, Committee on
the Judiciary ......................................................................................................... 00
WITNESSES
Dr. Mike Adams, Professor, University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Dr. Peter Wood, President, National Association of Scholars
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Mike Simkovic, Professor of Law and Accounting, USC Gould School of Law
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Dr. Tim Groseclose, Professor, George Mason University
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Jim Hoft, Founder and Editor, The Gateway Pundit
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Adriana Cohen, Syndicated Columnist, Boston Herald Radio Host
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Jeremy Tedesco, Vice President of U.S. Advocacy, Alliance Defending Free-
dom
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Ari Waldman, Professor of Law, New York Law School
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
Harmeet K. Dhillon, Esq., Partner, Dhillon Law Group Inc
Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 00
QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD
The Honorable Steve King, Iowa, Chairman, Subcommittee on the Con-
stitution and Civil Justice, Questions for the Record. This material
is available at the Committee and can be accessed on the committee
repository at:
https://docs.house.gov/ meetings/ JU/JU10/ 20180927/108458/
HHRG-115-JU10-20180927-SD004.pdf .......................................................
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Letters Submitted by the Honorable Steve King, Iowa, Chairman, Sub-
committee on the Constitution and Civil Justice. This material is available
at the Committee and can be accessed on the committee repository at:
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/ JU/JU10/20180927/ 108458/HHRG-
115-JU10- 20180927-SD003.pdf ..................................................................
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THE STATE OF INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM IN
AMERICA
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND CIVIL JUSTICE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:38 a.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Steve King [Chairman
of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives King, Goodlatte; Cohen, Nadler, and
Raskin.
Staff present: Joe Graupensperger, Minority Chief Counsel, Sub-
committee on Crime; James Park, Minority Chief Counsel, Sub-
committee on the Constitution; David Greengrass, Minority Senior
Counsel; Matthew Morgan, Minority Professional Staff Member;
Veronica Eligan, Minority Professional Staff Member; Akhil
Thodari, Minority Intern.
Mr. KING. The Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Jus-
tice will come to order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of
the committee at any time.
We welcome everyone to today’s hearing on, ‘‘The State of Intel-
lectual Freedom in America,’’ and I now recognize myself for an
opening statement.
When anyone is silenced, the result is censorship. That is plain
and simple. But it takes a more sinister form, particularly in set-
tings that claim to champion open discourse, and when it is per-
formed quietly behind closed doors, it also—in many cases, only the
person who is censored knows what’s happened. And even then, the
person often doesn’t know how or why it has happened.
Fortunately, Americans are beginning to recognize this quiet
trend in our society in which one group or another systemically si-
lences another’s beliefs with which they disagree. On college cam-
puses, the academic freedom at an institution is threatened when
professors feel retaliation or administrative sway for what they
choose to research or teach or even discuss in a casual setting.
Fear in turn results in exclusion, which can produce a chilling
effect in academia that affects the credibility of entire bodies of re-
search. And that would include scientific research once thought im-
mune to political influence.
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For example, in an April 2018 report issued by the National As-
sociation of Scholars titled ‘‘The Irreproducibility Crisis of Modern
Science,’’ political groupthink in a scientific culture biased towards
producing positive results are among the factors contributing to a
shocking number of scientific results in fields ranging from medi-
cine to social psychology that additional research can’t reliably re-
produce.
The report states, and I quote, ‘‘Groupthink inhibits attempts to
check results since replication studies can undermine comfortable
beliefs. An entire academic discipline can succumb to groupthink
and create a professional consensus with a strong tendency to dis-
miss results that question its foundations. The overwhelming polit-
ical homogeneity of academics has also created a culture of
groupthink that distorts academic research since researchers may
readily accept results that confirm a liberal worldview while reject-
ing conservative conclusions out of hand.’’
Without objection, the report will be made a part of the record.
The focus of today’s hearing, however, isn’t limited to college cam-
puses. Indeed, this committee continues to hear from Americans
who are being discriminated against on the basis of their politics,
and also on the basis of their interests and their beliefs on social
media platforms.
In some cases, tech companies claim that they act with good in-
tentions. Silicon Valley’s censoring of hate speech, for example, has
ostensibly become their latest effort to combat terrorism. But as
pointed out in a National Review article published earlier this year,
‘‘Moderate Muslims and critics of Islam as political ideology found
themselves subject to bans and restrictions on social media for ar-
ticulating reasonable ideas and criticisms that deserve debate rath-
er than restriction.’’
YouTube, for example, restricted video presentations by people
such as Kasim Hafeez, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Quram Dara. In 2017,
Facebook restricted posts by an organization called Ex-Muslims of
North America. They oppose radical Islam and they seek to comfort
apostates. How Facebook and Google actions are intended to com-
bat radicalization defies reason.
As we continue to explore this issue, I find it significant that the
problems occurring on the platforms are also occurring inside the
social media companies themselves. Testimony submitted by one of
our witnesses today indicates that these companies are targeting
employees with opposing views, even extending its bias beyond just
political beliefs. Indeed, according to today’s testimony, men,
whites, Asians, Christians, those with conservative family values,
are daily punished for who they are and for what they believe.
And I would add to this statement an observation that was made
to me over in Western Europe as I was seated with a number of
their leaders. And I pointed out to them that they need American-
style First Amendment freedom of speech rights all across that con-
tinent. That open dialogue is not taking place there, and it is inhib-
iting their ability to move their society forward because of this
groupthink.
And they looked at me and said, ‘‘We have more freedom of
speech in Europe than you have in America.’’ A pretty stunning
NG statement, and I did my best to rebut that, and pointed out that
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they are locking people up for violating freedom of speech—or for
exercising freedom of speech. And they said, we seldom lock anyone
up. But you have deposed founders of companies, CEOs of compa-
nies, for making a political donation that is disagreed with by the
groupthink here in this country.
When they made that point, I have got to rethink mine. Our con-
stitutional rights need to be protected. They need to be expanded.
They need to be respected, not only in law but in our culture.
And so with that, today’s hearing will expose—explore some of
these problems, among others, and in greater detail. With that, I
would like to thank all the witnesses for being here today. I look
forward to your testimony, and I now recognize the ranking mem-
ber, Mr. Cohen of Tennessee, for his opening statement.
[The statement of Mr. King follows:]
**********COMMITTEE INSERT**********
Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we are here today, and I
am sure no one is watching because everybody is watching Dr.
Blasey Ford’s testimony, which I was able to watch some of, and
what a heroic, brilliant, and honest woman that is, who has gone
through unbelievable attacks for coming forward and talking about
a sexual assault that she suffered that has suffered—made her suf-
fer for years.
Some have suggested she is doing it for fame, possibly for getting
in—a movie contract, or some future benefit. That is despicable.
She is doing it because she is a victim who knows she needs to
come forward and let the American people know the type of person
who is being nominated for the Supreme Court of the United
States.
Meanwhile, we are here. And what is the purpose of this hear-
ing? It is the last week before midterms, and the last opportunity
Republicans have to waste precious subcommittee time, which is
limited, and which we have spent no time looking into the prob-
lems that we have seen about the last election and the fault of—
the lack of—the attacks on elections and voting rights, and the
Emoluments Clause violations, et cetera.
It is a longstanding tactic of Republican political strategy to re-
lentlessly push the narrative that conservatives are the victims of
an oppressive cultural elite that tries to suppress conservative
views, almost making a fetish out of their own supposed
victimhood. And in the statement of the chairman, he said some-
thing about stopping people from speaking who have family values.
Well, there are a lot of people who have family values who are not
conservative. That is not something conservatives have to them-
selves. Mr. Greengrass back here has a son, Ben. I guarantee that
David Greengrass has family values.
This argument is belied by the fact that Republicans currently
control all of the elected components of our national Government
as well as a majority of State governments. That is hardly evidence
that conservative views do not get a fair opportunity to shape pub-
lic opinion. Indeed, conservatives enjoy the support of a vast and
thriving right-wing media machine ranging from talk radio, to
where the only thing you can get on AM these days is talk radio
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of conservative websites and social media outlets like Breitbart,
Daily Caller—I don’t know what their names are. I don’t read them
or listen to them. But I see their tweets, oftentimes making awful
pejorative statements, some of which have questioned my religion,
or some of their followers have, and said, yes, we are not surprised
his name is Cohen.
One of our witnesses later is going to be Cohen. She doesn’t
think anything like I think. But a lot of those people say, we are
not surprised his name is Cohen, suggesting I have some kind of
dual alliance with Israel, which of course I don’t, or other nefarious
thoughts.
And notable conservatives have held and continue to hold pres-
tigious positions in academia. Just one prominent example is Judge
Anton Scalia, who prior to being appointed to the Federal bench
was a law professor at the University of Chicago.
Stanford University is home to the Hoover Institution, a re-
spected conservative think tank that has served as a place of schol-
arship for such prominent Republicans as Condoleezza Rice, Don-
ald Rumsfeld, and George Shultz, as well as conservative scholars
like Thomas Sowell and Niall Ferguson.
As was clearly established during two prior full committee hear-
ings on social media content and moderation practices, there is no
credible evidence that social media companies intentionally target
conservative content for censorship. Indeed, similar complaints
have been raised by certain liberal activists about the way social
media companies apply their content moderation policies.
Moreover, even if social media companies were actually inten-
tionally discriminating against conservative viewpoints, it would be
so well within their rights to do so, just as Fox News and Breitbart
and Sinclair do.
In short, there is no merit to the majority’s principal argument
underlying the hearing. What we should be dealing with are the
fact that we are living in a time when the rule of law is under
grave threat by the actions of Trump, who appears to have little
respect for constitutional or democratic norms, whether the issue
is the separation of powers, respect for the judiciary, respect for
women, and a free press or a government free of conflicts of inter-
est and ethical lapses.
We are living in a time when the right to vote is being under-
mined by voter suppression tactics ranging from voter identifica-
tion laws to elimination of same-day registration and prohibitions
on nonviolent ex-offender voting, tactics that disproportionately af-
fect African Americans and other minority groups. We are living in
a time when the truth itself is under attack.
We are living in a time when hostile foreign powers like Russia
continue their efforts to meddle in our electoral system to discredit
and erode confidence in democracy itself. We are living also in the
time of the Me Too movement, where women who have been vic-
tims of sexual harassment and sexual assault are bravely stepping
forward, as Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is doing now, and con-
fronting their victimizers. They are just a few of the many other
issues that are far more worthy of the subcommittee’s time than
today’s political gimmick of a hearing. The American people de-
NG serve better.
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[The statement of Mr. Cohen follows:]
**********COMMITTEE INSERT**********
Mr. KING. The gentleman’s time has expired, and the chair
would now recognize the ranking member of the full committee,
Mr. Nadler of New York.
Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The purported subject
of today’s hearing is the state of intellectual freedom in America.
Despite this lofty title, however, the hearing’s actual purpose is to
reinforce the bogus narrative that cultural institutions and those
that run them are arrayed against conservative people and ideas.
We start with an old favorite of the right-wing media sphere,
which is the assertion that colleges and universities are dedicated
to persecuting conservative scholars while brainwashing students
into becoming liberal activists. Simply put, however, there are
plenty of conservative academics teaching at colleges and univer-
sities, including at least three sitting before us today.
And as if a hearing on the topic of liberal academics alone was
not already a waste of taxpayers’ dollars, today’s hearing will also
feature a panel on a right-wing conspiracy theory of more recent
vintage, namely, that social media companies are intentionally
supressing conservative viewpoints.
This would now be the third hearing that the House Judiciary
Committee has held this year on so-called anti-conservative media
bias, anti-conservative social media bias. At no point in the pre-
vious two hearings have we been presented with any credible evi-
dence that social media companies are censoring conservatives for
ideological reasons.
But even if they were, so what? They are private companies.
They are entitled, if they want, to propagate or favor whatever
views they—they favor, liberal, conservative, or whatever; as do
Fox, right-wing talk radio, and Sinclair. They are unabashedly
right-wing. They have a right to be.
Or are the people who are running this committee and the people
on the right-wing who are propagating this nonsense, do they favor
bringing back the fairness doctrine abolished by Ronald Reagan’s
FCC? If they do, maybe we can talk about that, and then Fox will
be forced to broadcast liberal viewpoints for every conservative
viewpoint they broadcast. So will Sinclair. So will right-wing talk
radio. Right-wing talk radio probably wouldn’t exist. We’ll be able
to kiss Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh goodbye. And maybe some
people think that’s a good idea, and maybe not, but in the absence
of bringing back the fairness doctrine, what are we even talking
about?
Instead of indulging in conservative talking points, the sub-
committee could be holding a substantive hearing about the use of
social media. For instance, we could be holding a hearing on the
undisputed fact that the Russian Government used social media to
wage a disinformation campaign to attack our democracy during
the 2016 election. Indeed, in light of the upcoming midterm elec-
tion, such a hearing would be timely.
The Wall Street Journal, a publication not exactly known for its
liberal bias, reported just last month that U.S. intelligence officials
NG warned of a ‘‘pervasive’’ effort by Russia to disrupt the 2018 elec-
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tion. Yet rather than focus on a real topic of critical concern, pro-
tecting the integrity of our elections against foreign interference,
the majority has now wasted three hearings on meritless claims of
anti-conservative social media bias by private companies that have
every right, if they wish, to favor liberals’ or conservatives’ views
or anything else they want to.
This hearing is remarkable in one sense. The majority seems to
have reached a new low in terms of who it has chosen to invite as
witnesses. Many of the majority witnesses here today are not just
notable for their fringe ideological positions, but for their extreme
conduct, their peddling of false conspiracy theories that hurt inno-
cent people, their outright—and their outright animus and bigotry
toward the cries of gays, lesbians, and transgender people.
For example, Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit website, in an attempt
to discredit the courageous efforts of the survivors of the horrific
shooting at Parkland High School in Florida in support of reason-
able gun regulations, helped to propagate the false story that these
shooting survivors were not real victims but were instead trained
‘‘crisis actors.’’
After Mr. Hoft’s website published that story, sponsors of a panel
on the topic of suppression of conservative views on social media
at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual gath-
ering of leading conservative activists, demanded that Mr. Hoft be
removed from the panel, and ultimately the panel was cancelled as
a result.
In short, Mr. Hoft’s association with the ‘‘crisis actor’’ conspiracy
theory was too much even for CPAC, which describes itself as the
birthplace of conservativism. Yet Mr. Hoft has been invited here
today to testify before this subcommittee, to disgrace the sub-
committee by his presence. Apparently, this subcommittee is less
scrupulous than the organizers of CPAC.
As if this were not enough of an embarrassment to our com-
mittee, Professor Mike Adams, another majority witness, a pro-
fessor, has a history of harassing students and making remarks
disparaging LGBTQ persons. When challenged about his behavior,
Professor Adams tried to hide behind the claim that his statements
were mere ‘‘satire’’ or exaggerations meant to anger liberals.
We should, however, listen to just some of Professor Adams’
statements. He mockingly asked whether a 19-year-old student was
on a ‘‘queer Muslim jihad’’ and wrote, ‘‘Her claims to be a queer
Muslim are probably part of an act designed to fit into as many vic-
tim categories as possible.’’ This by a professor against a student.
He referred to transgender people as ‘‘mentally ill,’’ and he said
that ‘‘Gay couples do not deserve equal benefits because they do not
equally benefit society.’’ Political correctness run amuck? No. Sim-
ple bigotry.
Also invited to testify here today is Alliance Defending Freedom,
an organization that represented Professor Adams in his free
speech claim against his university, and which continues to ad-
vance the outrageous argument that the Constitution’s free exer-
cise clause permits business owners to discriminate against
LGBTQ persons or other people they choose to discriminate
against. I must note that their willingness to represent Professor
NG Adams calls into quantity the integrity of the argument that they
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